Extra workouts help children gain a step

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By Karen Goldberg Goff

Matthew Converse, 9, plays on travel soccer and baseball teams. That is four practices a week, pretty much year round, but says he really likes the additional training at Philbin's.

"I look forward to coming here," he says.

Having fun should be a focus of extra training, no matter what the final goal is, says Joel Brenner, a pediatric sports medicine specialist at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk, Va., and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' sports medicine committee.

"If you are going to do extra training, it should be geared toward kids," Dr. Brenner says.

If parents want to get young athletes involved in a such a program, they should see what the program's drills and goals include. The AAP does not recommend serious weight training until children pass puberty.

Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and author of the book "The Young Athlete," says children as young as 9 can do some weight training as long as they use light weights and high repetition.

"If done correctly, weight training can build bone strength and prevent injury," Dr. Metzl says.

However, the AAP cautions parents about a more esoteric injury - burnout. It can show up physically, in the form of injury, or psychologically, such as losing enthusiasm for training and competing.

The AAP recommends athletes taking one or two days off of training a week, as well as taking a longer break - two or three months - to focus on other activities and cross training.

"Kids need to have an off-season," Dr. Brenner says. "It lets their mind and body recover. They don't have to do organized sports during that time. They can just play outside."

Also, parents need to keep in mind their ultimate goal of training. Is it to take a second off a football player's time in the 40-yard-dash? Or is it to incrementally work toward becoming an NFL-caliber wide receiver?

"The growth of sports has led to parents a lot of times having their kids specializing at a young age [in order to] get a college scholarship," Dr. Brenner says. "There is nothing to show that starting this young is going to get them there."

Mr. Hall points to the flags hanging from the ceiling of Philbin's: University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University, University of Connecticut and Stanford University, among them. They represent athletes who have trained at the gym and gone on to play various sports for those major programs, among others.

The extra training didn't, of course, earn the scholarships. But it didn't hurt, either.

"We can aid in that; we can't work miracles," Mr. Hall says. "We can help the kids meet goals."